The project involved 57 academics in 20 countries around the world, and spanned disciplines including anthropology, psychology, and philosophy.

It wanted to establish whether belief in divine beings and an afterlife were ideas simply learned from society or integral to human nature.

Professor Roger Trigg from Oxford said the research showed that religion was “not just something for a peculiar few to do on Sundays instead of playing golf”.

“We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies. This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived because human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, like the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.”

Dr Justin Barrett, from the University of Oxford’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind, who directed the project, said faith may persist in diverse cultures across the world because people who share the bonds of religion “might be more likely to cooperate as societies . . . Interestingly, we found that religion is less likely to thrive in populations living in cities in developed nations where there is already a strong social support network.”

Replies to This Discussion

Still a stupid argument. I base my convictions on reason and they change if I am proven wrong, which you knuckleheads don't even come close to doing. I have no leader. I read and am influenced by a lot more than Ayn Rand, whom I think is irrational in a few ways. And regardless of what a dogmatic Objectivist may say about someone who is polluting the air with their business, I think destroying what others have just as much right to is an offense that should, in fact, be taxed, or criminalized, depending on the damage it does.

You say that selfishness does not necessarily essentially entail being mean to others and then you say that sometimes it does. No. That is, sometimes, someone is also something else besides appropriately selfish and tramples on someone else. It is not the selfishness, but the disregard and offense. They are different things.

You can take a small piece of history and quote whatever numbers you like....you're like a Palestinian or Israeli going back to whatever part of history they like and bring up a couple points. I prefer to look at human behavior, throughout history, as well as the nature of choice and responsibility and come to the conclusion that even before you think that you can make some gain with other people's money, it is first and foremost an affront to individuals' personal, human, or whatever rights you choose to call them. It is you with the aggression. You MAY help some people, but you will, by nature of reality, also necessarily bring others down. Costa Rica, The United States of America or whoever else suits your fancy are successful and productive in as much as the individuals create. It is not the unfair, physically coerced redistribution of wealth and bureaucratic reward of need with corrupt government officials voting as influenced by special interest groups that causes prosperity. We are prosperous despite our government not because of it. That's what made the two main world changing societies, Ancient Greece and the US, so successful initially, their respect of the individual. The more the government gets involved the worse it gets (on average, over time). Of course the only way to make the poor better off, since they won't do it themselves (many of them) is to steal from the rich. I think we're better than that. I know you think having overwhelming compassion is more important, but again, like I said, it will always come down to basic ethics. You think a person's life is not theirs completely. I do.

Actually religion oft time was more than a place holder. During its more tranquil and human periods, when burning heretics was out of favor, many explorations into nature of the world were encouraged by the church and members of the clergy were the best suited at the time (they could read). This was true in all 3 of the Abrahamic branches. But , unfortunately, the opposite usually applies as a general rule.– scientific investigations were proscribed, the work of the scientists was destroyed as was an occasional scientist. Writings, artifacts and the knowledge of many cultures was eradicated by churches.

While the tiny light of knowledge that flickered through the Dark Age was preserved by the church - it was the fucking church that brought the era of darkness onto the heads of the people in the first place.

Yes, what is it you do not get, Alexa? The left more than the right, but both are for wealth redistribution (rewarding those who need rather than those who produce). Rewarding need does not help someone out of the lower income bracket; it just about guarantees their place there and the amount of people who are created by those who cannot provide for their children is multiplying fast. We, the government and our forced taxation, subsidize poor people to have more children that they cannot educate. It's retarded.

Marx: From those according to their ability to those according to need (wealth redistribution, socialism, slavery).

The right wants lower taxes than the left, sure, but no one on either side, except maybe Ron Paul, wants individual rights and thus freedom respected.

Communist and Libertarian alike is like shit and roses being alike. Dogma is commitment to an idea regardless of reason, not by embracing it. You are, as always, doing nothing but lashing out emotionally.

Your case has nothing to rest on. Communists have a great deal in common with Libertarians, in that they both base their governmental system on some unattainable ideal, which probably won't have the effect that they desire, even if they could attain it ... rather than basing their governmental system on what works.

Both ideals end in dictatorship: one by the Communist Party and the other by corporations and the wealthy.

I stated that you base your arguments on emotion by lashing out emotionally and you wrote, "No, I'm laughing at you". I think that rests my case clear enough.

Dictatorship by the producers of society, dictating that every person gets to keep their own shit. Brilliant.

"in that they both base their governmental system on some unattainable ideal, which probably won't have the effect that they desire, even if they could attain it ... rather than basing their governmental system on what works."

-So, you are fundamentally a pragmatist and use metaphor to bolster your convictions. OK.